Gliederung

In 2005 a window of opportunity was opened for medical students from Germany (D) due to a decision of the European court of justice. Austrian medical universities chose a first come first served strategy to admit students in this year.

Here it is analyzed whether these German students who can be considered as “second best” performed academically different compared with unselected students from Austria (A).

The following characteristics were compared: passing rate in the exam of year 1 (SIP 1) (D 74.2% - A 71.1%), drop-out rate (D 9.77% - A 15.9%), percentage of correct answers in SIP 1 (D 58.5% - A 56.9%), mean number of attempts to pass SIP 1 (D 1.91 - A 2.02), and time passed until passing SIP 1 (D 16.4 - A 16.6).

None of the compared differences reached statistical significance (p=0.05). The students from Germany who were denied to study medicine in Germany because of the Numerus clausus could not be distinguished in their academic performance from Austrian students. Hence it seems unjustified to exclude these students from studying medicine.